The Rise After The Merge- A Ninjago Fan Fiction

Chapter 12- The Dragon's Story

Kiyoshi led Zane and Arin to a huge library within the castle. There were rows upon rows of books and scrolls, all nicely sorted. Some palace workers bowed to their leader and princess as they approached a dead end."Why are we at a dead end?" Arin questioned, puzzled. "Our most valuable tales are not here," Kiyoshi replied. "But rather in the vaults that are connected to the library." He hit a certain part of the wall with his tail to reveal a beautifully kept cave with torches. "So let's go! Izume, make sure to close it behind us."

In their adventure in the cramped cave, Zane noticed many depictions of ancient dragons and Oni. "How is your relationship with the oni, by any chance?" Zane asked. Kiyoshi stopped in his tracks, and Izume gave him a dirty look. "It's complicated. Many years ago, there was a conflict that killed the Oni leaders. Peace is hard to maintain, and the new Oni leader won't show their face. So yeah, that's it."

"Wait, we lost two of our friends in the tunnels. They went a completely different direction than us. It is possible that they are in the Oni village?" Arin asked. Kiyoshi nodded. "Probably. If your friends are anything like you two, they'll be fine. Hopefully." Arin swallowed a lump in his throat. Surely Lloyd and Grace were okay, right?

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"Come on, Lloyd, get up."
"She's right, come on, get up, son."
"I can't believe you're being so dramatic over a sword. Of all things."

Lloyd did not listen to what they were saying. He was too busy looking at his shattered Dao sword, which the Dragon King broke. Master Wu had given it to him long ago, and now a remaining memory of his master was gone.

Grace dragged a reluctant Lloyd out of the scene and into a house building. Yoru tossed the pieces of the sword to Lloyd's feet, were Lloyd tried to put in back together, but he was no blacksmith. Yoru scoffed. "Give me those," he said as he scooped up the pieces and walked away to a building. Lloyd got up and followed, with Grace and Garmadon behind him. They walked into the interior of a rusty looking blacksmith shop. It looked like it had not been in use for a while. At the counter, there was a teenager Oni with pale skin, dark brown hair, and red eyes. "Hey Yoru! How can I help you?" he greeted. Yoru slapped down the pieces of Lloyd's sword. "Chrono, can you fix this? Or make it better?" The boy looked at the shattered pieces. "Yeah, probably. Haven't seen this since we trained together Yoru! You know, before the whole..." Chrono said getting off track. Yoru looked down. "Just fix this, Chrono."

Chrono eyed Grace's weapon. "Hey, you girl, is that an Oni made weapon?" he asked. "Oh, yeah it is," Grace replied as she took her weapon out to show. Chrono got a small magnifying glass as he examined it. "Okay, I can probably make a functional weapon like this," he stated. "Just give me a little time." As Lloyd heard the slamming of metal and a burning of fire, he got nervous. Even if he got a new weapon, he still lost so many memories from his original...

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"Let's see, here it is."

Kiyoshi gestured to an ancient wall engraving with dragons on it. Izume, Arin, and Zane were sitting on the floor, eagerly waiting. "Kiyoshi tells the best stories," Izume informed the others. Kiyoshi cleared his throat. "Let's see, where to begin..."

Long before time had a name in this realm, our race of people had always been here. The most powerful of them all was the Conduit, a powerful divine being that possessed all good and bad in the world, being a part Oni and Dragon. Everyone looked on to them as their hero as the Conduit constantly fought the Corrupt. They had equal ground, and the fighting for peace never ended. Realms were damaged all of the time including our own. Everything was starting to get unstable and unsafe as both the Oni and Dragons wanted the First Spinjitzu Master on their side,who was a little child back then. The Conduit and Corrupt did most of the fighting. The Corrupt was mainly held responsible for the most innocence killings, while the Conduit treaded lightly, trying not to kill anyone. The Conduit was our savor. Then one day the Conduit noticed that all of our realms were in danger. He choose to give up his power to the FSM and had forcefully tricked the Corrupt into also doing so. The Conduit and Corrupt gave up their life form to the First Spinjitzu Master, their blood rushing through his veins before he left the First Realm to create Ninjago. But if that were to happen again, to combine their divine powers, the world would be more destroyed.

"But I have something else important to tell you."

As I said before, relations with the Oni have not been stable for a while. Believe it or not, we once were living together peacefully. But that story is for another time. I'm not extremely trusting in humans a lot... because of what happened...

It was after the Merge and the Imperium had found me and my family. They took us hostage and succeeded at draining our powers. Our parents were also being drained, to power Imperium. One day after almost being completely drained, my parents pleaded to the Empress. To let me and my sister go, to drain only their power, as it contained more powerful properties. They agreed but forced me and my sister to watch our parents lose all of their powers, all of their life drained from them. The last thing we heard them mutter was, "Take good care of the kingdom. We love the both of you."

"And that, my friends, is the entire history of this kingdom," Kiyoshi finished, with slight tears in his eyes. "Actually, Kiyoshi, they asked for you to look at something in the throne room," Izume blurted out. "Okay, let's go right now." Arin followed Kiyoshi and Izume out of the cave and back into the vast library. You would have not guessed that they had a troubled past because of their big smiles they out on their faces, their bright colors shining. And that, is how Arin realized more that looks often are a facade, to hide something dark...

There's always more to a person than you know it...

I don't know what else to say :D

Anyways we got Kiyoshi angst :)

Uh, see you next chapter!